Sending email with C# using SMTP

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In this article i’ll try to explain how we can send emails using SMTP servers.
First of all, what is SMTP what is MTA,MUA, protocol? Let’s start talking about these subjects.

Protocol?
Protocol is a group of rules which is used by applications that communicate each other from network.?
SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.
Is a protocol used to transfer emails.First RFC was published in August1982.We can say that when we compose a message in an outlookapplication and send it, the outlook application sends this email tomail server by using the smtp protocol.
MTA
Mail Transfer Agent.
Is the mail servers which communicates both with other email serversand clients to fetch emails.For example : Qmail,Postfix,Courier…
MUA
Mail User Agent
Is the applications that lets users to read & compose emails.For example: Outlook Express

Here you can find a diagram that explains the network topology.

This diagram shows the communication between the MTA and MUA

What are the rules of SMTP protocol?

SMTP is a protocol (application free) therefore we are able to send anemail without using C# which i prefer to show this using telnet.Nowwe’ll send an email to leventyildiz@gmail.com by using telnet.Our mailtransfer agent’s address is mail.somemta.com and we’ll send this emailby using our existing account lyildiz@somemta.com .

Run the command prompt and enter the following line;
C:\>telnet mail.somemta.com 25

When we enter this command the mta will respond us as follows;
220 mail.somemta.com ESMTP

To finish handshake with the mta enter the following line;
HELO mail.somemta.com

The mta will respond us, telling us that handshaking is ok;
250 mail.somemta.com

At this stage we will inform mta about the email’s sender and recipient.
To inform the sender account enter the following line;
mail from:lyildiz@somemta.com

Mta will respond us telling us tht he has received the information.
250 ok

Now we’ll send the recipient information by entering the following line;
rcpt to:leventyildiz@gmail.com

Mta should respond us as follows;
250 ok

Hope you don’t have any problems J
Now we are ready to write the content of our email.The information we’ll enter here will be shown in mua.
We declare mta tht we are ready to enter the email content by entering the followingline;
data

Mta should respond as follows;
354 go ahead

Till now mta was responding us on each of our command by sending us the message “250 ok”
But after we enter the “data” command mta won’t respond our comments until we enter the escape command.
The escape command is ?<Enter> . <Enter>? (press enter , press . and enter , press enter)?

Let’s write the contentFrom:Levent YILDIZ ACME Inc.
To:Levent YILDIZ MINDSTORM Inc.
Subject:our first mail sent by C#?

This mail has been sent by C#

After we enter the escape command mta should respond as follows;
250 ok 1118680536 qp 21248

This ok message can vary by the type of the mta.The important section is the “250 ok” part.

Now we can check our email.

If you have experienced any problems till this stage, that problems mayhave been occured by the securty properties of your mta.Most of the mtasystems use “POP-before-SMTP” securty which does not allow users toconnect to SMTP port if the user has not been granted by the POPprotocol.I advise you to get support from your mail administrator.

So let’s get to the point.How we will achieve this by C#?Below code is all you need.Take a look at it…

using System;
using System.Net.Sockets;
using System.IO;namespace SendMailviaSMTP
{
public class SMTPMailSender
{
string mvarSMTPServerAddress;
string mvarSenderName;
string mvarSenderEmailAddress;
string mvarRecipientName;
string mvarRecipientEmailAddress;
string mvarEmailSubject;
string mvarEmailBody; int mvarSMTPTimeOut;
int mvarSMTPRemotePort; TcpClient tclSMTP;
NetworkStream nstSMTP;
StreamReader strSMTP;
StreamWriter stwSMTP;
DateTime dteTimeOutCheck; public SMTPMailSender()
{
mvarSMTPTimeOut = 60;
mvarSMTPRemotePort = 25;
}
public bool SendEmail()
{
//SMTP sunucusu ile ba?lant? kuruluyor
//Connecting to SMTP Server
tclSMTP=new TcpClient();
try
{
tclSMTP.Connect(mvarSMTPServerAddress,mvarSMTPRemotePort);
}
catch
{
return false;
}
nstSMTP=tclSMTP.GetStream();
stwSMTP=new StreamWriter(nstSMTP);
strSMTP=new StreamReader(nstSMTP);
//mta’dan kar??lama mesaj? bekleniyor
//waiting for greeting message from MTA
if (WaitForResponse(“220″))
{
//mta’ya kar??lama mesaj? g?nderiliyor
//sending greeting message to MTA
stwSMTP.WriteLine(“HELO ” + mvarSMTPServerAddress);
stwSMTP.Flush();
}
else
{
tclSMTP.Close();
return false;
}
if (WaitForResponse(“250″))
{
//g?nderici email adresi g?nderiliyor
//sending sender email address to MTA
stwSMTP.WriteLine(“mail from:” + mvarSenderEmailAddress);
stwSMTP.Flush();
}
else
{
tclSMTP.Close();
return false;
}
if (WaitForResponse(“250″))
{
//al?c? email adresi g?nderiliyor
//sending recipient email address to MTA
stwSMTP.WriteLine(“rcpt to:” + mvarRecipientEmailAddress);
stwSMTP.Flush();
}
else
{
tclSMTP.Close();
return false;
}
if (WaitForResponse(“250″))
{
//mail’i yazmak i?in data moduna ge?iliyor
//switching to data mode for entering body of the mail
stwSMTP.WriteLine(“data”);
stwSMTP.Flush();
}
else
{
tclSMTP.Close();
return false;
}
if (WaitForResponse(
“35
4″))
{
//mesajin body k?sm? haz?rlan?yor
//preparing the body section of the email
string strSMTPData=”";
strSMTPData=”From:” + mvarSenderName + Environment.NewLine;
strSMTPData+=”To:” + mvarRecipientName + Environment.NewLine;
strSMTPData+=”Subject:” + mvarEmailSubject + Environment.NewLine + Environment.NewLine;
strSMTPData+=mvarEmailBody + Environment.NewLine + “.” + Environment.NewLine;
//mesaj g?nderiliyor
//sending message
stwSMTP.Write(strSMTPData);
stwSMTP.Flush();
}
else
{
tclSMTP.Close();
return false;
}
if (WaitForResponse(“250″))
{
//g?nderim ba?ar?l? ise de?er true d?nd?r?l?yor
//returns true if the send process succeeds
tclSMTP.Close();
return true;
}
else
{
tclSMTP.Close();
return false;
}
//g?nderim ba?ar?s?z ise de?er false d?nd?r?l?yor
//returns false if the send process fails
tclSMTP.Close();
return false;
}
bool WaitForResponse(string strResponseCode)
{
//zamana??m? kontrol? i?in mevcut tarih saat bilgisi al?n?yor
//gathering current date time data for timeout check
dteTimeOutCheck=DateTime.Now;
//zamana??m? de?eri bulunuyor
//calculating timeout value
TimeSpan tsp=DateTime.Now-dteTimeOutCheck;
//zamana??m? de?eri kullan?c?n?n belirledi?i de?eri a??ncaya kadar d?ng? ?al??t?r?l?yor
//looping code until the timeout exceeds the user defined value
while(tsp.Seconds<mvarSMTPTimeOut)
{
//MTA bize herhangi bir mesaj g?ndermi? mi kontrol ediliyor.
//checking if MTA has sent a message to us
if (nstSMTP.DataAvailable)
{
//e?er g?ndermi??se mesaj okunuyor
//if so, get the message
string strIncomingData=strSMTP.ReadLine();
//gelen bilginin protokol numaras? istenen koda uyuyormu kontrol ediliyor
//checking if the requested protocol number matches the server response
if (strIncomingData.Substring(0,strResponseCode.Length)==strResponseCode)
return true;
}
//zamana??m? de?eri yeniden hesaplan?yor
//recalculating the timeout value
tsp=DateTime.Now-dteTimeOutCheck;
}
return false;
}
public string SMTPServerAddress
{
get{return mvarSMTPServerAddress;}
set{mvarSMTPServerAddress=value;}
}
public string SenderName
{
get{return SenderName;}
set{mvarSenderName=value;}
}
public string SenderEmailAddress
{
get{return SenderEmailAddress;}
set{mvarSenderEmailAddress=value;}
}
public string RecipientName
{
get{return RecipientName;}
set{mvarRecipientName=value;}
}
public string RecipientEmailAddress
{
get{return RecipientEmailAddress;}
set{mvarRecipientEmailAddress=value;}
}
public string EmailSubject
{
get{return EmailSubject;}
set{mvarEmailSubject=value;}
}
public string EmailBody
{
get{return EmailBody;}
set{mvarEmailBody=value;}
}
public int SMTPTimeOut
{
get{return SMTPTimeOut;}
set{mvarSMTPTimeOut=value;}
}
public int SMTPRemotePort
{
get{return SMTPRemotePort;}
set{mvarSMTPRemotePort=value;}
}
}
}

Namespaces we used;
System
System.Net.Sockets
System.IO

We used sockets ns to connect to MTA by tcpclient class, IO ns to receive and send the information arrived to netstream object.
You can find the members of our class below

Member Name	Description
mvarSMTPServerAddress	?fully qualified domain name? or the ip address of the MTA (string)
mvarSenderName	The sender name that will shown in MUA (string)
mvarSenderEmailAddress	The sender email account that we’ll inform to MTA. (string)
mvarRecipientName	The recipient name that will shown in MUA (string)
mvarRecipientEmailAddress	The recipient email account that we’ll inform to MTA (string)
mvarEmailSubject	Subject of our email (string)
mvarEmailBody	The body of our email (string)
mvarSMTPTimeOut	Timeout in seconds. (int, default=60)
mvarSMTPRemotePort	The port number of the MTA (int, default=25)
SendEmail	The method that sends the email. (bool)